Commercial and industrial companies are benefiting from the boom in real estate businesses. Repairs, installations, and maintenance have become a staple in the last two years. With the market influx, companies have to meet customer demands and expectations.
Today, field service technicians, managers, and other workers face more deadlines and calls. It is no surprise that over 70% of them have experienced burnout and stress in the past year. To help out with this, we have gathered some tips below to prevent getting drained, expedite processes and enhance customer support.
Keep Track of Schedules
Before signing the contract, you and your team must talk about the doability of a project. Once done, discuss it with the clients and negotiate. The thing is, you have to balance client expectations with employee satisfaction. Stress is present in all forms of work, especially in these businesses. The least you can do is find ways to reduce it while ensuring the quality of work and productivity.
When you begin a project, you all should keep track of the deadline. You should have a comprehensive timeframe to know what will happen and when to complete each step. You should also regularly visit, review, and manage the schedule. That way, you may formulate a backup plan should there be mistakes. The field technicians may do the repairs quickly to avoid problems and delays.
Note that every mistake has a butterfly effect, disrupting the timeliness of service delivery. Calendar and warning alerts will provide notifications when a deadline is approaching. These will help update subcontractors and clients on a project’s development. It also helps if they visit the site often to know if the current work is within the timeframe.
Enhance Collaboration With Workers
Effective management of projects requires a team effort in every process. During planning, the synergy of ideas will lead to a promising model and process to follow. Talk with project managers, field technicians, subcontractors, and human resource (HR) staff. Doing so may help create a realistic and timebound project plan.
You must also be open to communication since follow-ups are essential. Quality checks and delegation are things to discuss and scrutinize. Thankfully, many digital tools will allow you to talk with your project manager and field technicians even when you are away. You may send and receive photos and files when there are problems and verifications.
The crucial part of collaboration is putting the right people in the proper position. They must have the right skills and experience for a particular project.
Make Priority Lists
Everything in the project plan is vital. But often, the steps and expectations can be overwhelming. That is why you and your team must know which is more important and urgent. Knowing which project or part of it to prioritize will help you in every step.
The book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey provides a four-quadrant matrix to help prioritization. Quadrant 1 is where you can find the urgent and critical tasks. Quadrant 2 lists the non-urgent but essential items. Meanwhile, Quadrant 3 includes the urgent but unimportant things to tick off. Quadrant 4 presents the non-urgent and non-important items.
Conduct Meetings
Meetings are part of the collaboration, but they sometimes appear as disruptions to the process. Project managers, field technicians, and workers sometimes dislike meetings when deadlines are approaching. That is why they should be sensible, actionable, and purposive. Meetings are held for follow-ups to avoid issues and ensure timeliness and quality.
Utilize Technology
Technological advancement and digital transformation have been happening across industries. Industrial companies are also reaping the benefits of these innovative developments.
Now, workflow optimization helps track all processes, from operations to marketing and finance.
Today, many businesses use field service management software to record and expedite processes. It also helps trace financial transactions and safety risk management. Data shows that it is a key aspect in meeting deliverables and improving productivity.
It is also vital in enhancing communication between in-office and on-site workers and technicians. It also lessens the probability of rework and drives data-based decision-making. Lastly, it fastens service delivery when there are customer requests and repairs.
Be Mindful of Your Customers
Does the business process expedite the delivery of service? Are the customers satisfied with the service and support you provide? Be open and honest with them. Attend to their needs and ask for their feedback that may help you enhance customer support.
The Bottom Line
Running a commercial or industrial business requires thorough knowledge and careful planning. Every step may be tedious and delicate, burdening workers and affecting customer expectations. But there are many effective techniques to simplify the process and service delivery. They improve time management, reduce employee burnout, and ensure customer support and satisfaction.
